Potpourri
by LiesMiranda
Summary: A collection of drabbles centred upon Lily and James
1. Say it Again

**A/N **This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time, and as I accidentally deleted my Tumblr, these all needed somewhere to go. Enjoy!

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**Say it Again**

A hand snakes out and grabs her wrist, and Lily Evans is unceremoniously pulled behind a tapestry as she makes her way to charms. Once her feet have regained their footing, she rounds on the owner of the hand, for a moment forgetting that she should be flustered in her boyfriend's presence.

"Merlin's sake James, you can't just drag me wherever you want, whenever you want."

"Why not?" James tilts his head, feigning innocent curiosity. The mischievous glint behind his eyes indicates otherwise. "It's always worked in the past, for all kinds of purposes."

Lily rolls her eyes. "If you're going to throw innuendos around, I'd like to be excused. Call me crazy, but I've always liked being on time for class."

James' fingers are still wrapped around her wrist, and they give it a gentle tug, bringing Lily another step closer to him. Their chests are an inch away from each other, and Lily remembers how agitated she is, because last night she had to go and change _everything_.

"What's the hurry, Evans?" James breathes. "Last time I checked, first lesson doesn't begin for another ten minutes." Lily shifts awkwardly, because he _knows_ why, he's just a git who'll make her say it. "Just a moment ago, you absolutely barrelled out of breakfast … so what's going on?"

Lily quickly decides to squash all of her signs of insecurity, and tilts her chin upwards an inch to glare at full force. "You know what's going on, and if you'll stop torturing me and just give me a _reaction_ we'd all be able to –"

She's cut off by the full strength of James pressing his lips against hers. He still hasn't let go of her wrist, and he's suddenly holding it like a lifeline. When she breaks away, he intertwines their fingers and brings them to his chest.

There's a moment where they just look at each other.

"Say something, James," Lily murmurs, her voice hitching on the edge of desperation as she says his name. "Merlin, just _say _something, because last night you just stared at me, and unless you talk I don't think I'll ever relax again." She pauses and breathes, and then looks at him sternly. "But no matter what you say, there's no way I'm apologising. I'm not sorry."

"Why?" James asks, a burning earnestness in his every muscle. "Why did you say it last night?"

"In all honesty?" Lily releases a breathy laugh. "You're a great kisser, and it just slipped out."

His eyes bore into her own, before he leans down and brushes a kiss across her lips. "Say it again," he whispers.

"I love you," Lily says, "I do, and if you feel the same way you'll 'fess up and stay it, rather than assaulting me every time I turn a corner."

He chuckles, and the hand not holding hers swipes through his hair before sweeping across her collarbones, her jaw, her lips. "Lily Evans," he says solemnly, "I love you, you fantastically psychotic, impulsive witch."

He's a complete prat, but she'll take it.


	2. Living with Anarchists

**A/N **Inspired by the prompt "Harry's first months"

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**Living with Anarchists**

"Good news," Lily declares, flopping beside James on the sofa with a thump. "I've confirmed that you really are the father of my son."

It's just gone eight on a Tuesday night, but as James's eyes lift from the evening _Prophet_ he sees that his wife is beyond exhaustion, and he lifts his left arm for her to scoot underneath. Sleepily, he presses his mouth to her forehead.

"Did that ridiculous hair we share alert you?" he hums.

"Close, but no." Lily opens her mouth to continue, but breaks off in a yawn, which is followed by a groan of frustration. "It's this _asinine_ refusal to follow any semblance of authority."

"The wanted posters out already, are they?"

"I want him in Azkaban before society's endangered. It's been a month, and I'm already a sleepless zombie because of the little monster."

"Keeping you awake is something we Potter men do best."

Lily slaps his knee, but he feels her shoulders shake momentarily against his side. She sighs, closing her eyes. "I tried to put him down over two _hours_ ago," she moans, "and he's been a right brat ever since."

"Next time just lock the door and run," James suggests.

"_No_, James, because when you did that he wailed so loudly poor Bathilda ran down the street to check that he hadn't had a leg amputated." Lily's head turns, and she glares up at him. "I'd be yelling at you right now for sitting down here in peace while I dealt with the little tyke, but frankly I think it's for the best."

He chuckles, patting her hip comfortingly. "Don't worry love; I'll handle the toilet training. And when he's walking and talking, Harry and I will go out on father-son adventures and I'll train him up to be a good little anarchist like his dad."

"I'll hold you to that," Lily mutters.

"Sirius, Remus and Pete can come too. We'll have to raise him among the same company I grew up in. We want total mayhem or nothing."

Lily closes her eyes, makes a tired sound between her teeth. "Merlin, I hope there's a girl out there as gullible as I was."

"'Look out for the pretty gingers', I'll tell him," says James. "'They think they're clever, but we know how to handle them'."

"You're both absolute gits," Lily laughs, and James thinks that she's got to be the best mother to ever exist, to be reduced to exhaustion and still be poking fun at the two boys she's ended up with. "He's definitely your son. You keep him, and let me sleep."


	3. Temper, Temper

**Temper, Temper**

"Quite a temper you have there, Evans."

Lily turns around to see Potter standing just behind her, smirking wryly at the shards of glass sprayed across her study table. She scowls and vanishes them with a flick of her wand, removing all evidence of the wine glass which had stood there moments before.

"You'd think," she huffs, "that working in the back corner of the library would make it clear that you don't want to be disturbed."

"Aye," his voice is closer, and she tenses as he sits himself beside her, "but you'd also think that the girl who's top of the grade would have control of her magic before she'd turned sixteen."

She rolls her eyes. "You'd be surprised. No matter how I try, that glass is not gaining any limbs. And when I can't do something…" she makes an exploding sound, flexing her fingers above the table. Potter chuckles beside her.

"The first time I ever used magic, I had just turned two," he says. "I couldn't reach my favourite teddy bear on top of my dresser. One minute I was screaming, the next I was surrounded by splinters."

She looks at him in surprise. "Me too."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Well, almost."

He leans his elbow on the desk and props his chin on an open palm, leaning in towards her. "Do tell."

She swats at his forearm. "Be sensible, you idiot. You've just seen firsthand what I do when things are being silly."

His arm leaves the table and moves for his hand to hover above his heart. "Lily Evans, I am so much more than a _thing_."

She ignores the comment, she's used to him showing off, and she squints as she tries to conjure the memory.

"I was a little older than you, I think. Maybe three and a bit. Which is good, I guess, my parents would have gotten a bit less of a shock."

"I imagine you were a terribly scandalous child," he injects solemnly.

"Let me _talk_!" she exclaims, but she's laughing. "I was being naughty, and I got sent to my room. And as soon as Mum closed the door behind her, it _may _have exploded slightly."

"Ah," he nods seriously, "the ginger hair makes _sense_."

She points her wand at him. "Don't tease me in the pre-exam stress, Potter. You may lose those ears, and then how will you manage your glasses?"

James places a finger on the tip of her wand, matching her faux-threatening expression with one of his own. "Temper, temper," he scolds lightly. Then he grins. "Maybe we have more in common than you like to think. Except for the fact that _I _can actually pass Charms this year."

Lily refuses all responsibility for the textbooks which chase him out of the library.


	4. The Artist

**The Artist**

They've been in the same house for weeks, with no notion of when they may leave. With Lily pregnant, hours are filled preparing for a baby; thinking of names, storing valuables, trying to imagine how they're going to exist as parents.

Even so, the majority of their time is left empty. James reads for doesn't have many novels himself, but Lily's a hoarder and he discovers he rather likes Dickens, and Fitzgerald. They allow his mind to leave the tiny cottage, and when he comes to it's to notice the little paintings which are appearing everywhere.

Lily has always liked to paint. Her first letters from Hogwarts were rough sketches. Soon they'd _moved, _and she composed 'Potions', where a scribbled Lily and Severus waved behind a cauldron as simple ink lines of smoke wisped towards the dungeon ceiling. She'd included a drawing in every love letter she wrote him over their first summer out of Hogwarts, and he teased her relentlessly for them: for the way each of her colleagues in her _Prophet _internship existed merely as stick figures with triangles on their head to symbolise their hats; how she had to write an explanation of what each image depicted because they were unable to be deciphered without one.

Lily had insisted upon personalising the wedding invitations, with sketches uniquely applicable to each guest embossed upon their invite. There was a private summons to everyone from Sirius to Lily's hoity-toity brother-in-law.

Now the attribute which James had never considered to be more than a sweet trait is transforming Godric's Hollow from a prison. The house is starting to look like a home.

Illustrations on parchment start peppering the kitchen cupboards; small sketches of the cat, still life drawings of those wretched figurines they had been given as a wedding present from some great aunt or other. Soon, Lily's drawings extend to the hallway, pinned at random and homely intervals.

Sirius walks through the door one day, boxes piled in his arms. "Package for Mrs Potter!" he calls, and James raises an eyebrow. "Allow your missus to show you," is Sirius's cajoling response.

James watches in confusion as Sirius marches through to the kitchen and deposits his goods upon the table. It's even stranger when a beaming Lily emerges from the bathroom – she spends an overwhelming amount of time in there, these days – and looks happier to see Black than she ever has before. "Mine!" she crows, and begins opening the boxes to reveal load after load of paint.

Watercolours, acrylics, tins and brushes emerge from the boxes. "I did well, didn't I?" says Sirius proudly, helping himself to an apple from the fruit bowl and leaning leisurely against the doorframe. James turns to his wife, still not comprehending.

"For the baby's room," she explains softly, caressing her protruding stomach gently. "I'm going to do something useful with my hidden talent."

"Talent my left foot," James laughs, but he kisses her forehead and promises to help.

Yet it's clear from the first moments that it's Lily's project. James fixes the corners, reaches the higher places, and the ceiling's all his work, but Lily's tireless.

She stencils sailing ships on the creamy yellow walls - they don't mention the prophecy, but it's left them certain that they're expecting a son – and then adds to her rapidly growing collection of simplistic paintings. There's a yellow splodge which distinctly represents a duck, the red formation of a car.

James moves a watercolour of a deer from the baby's room, adoring the jagged sticks of antlers poking from its pointed head, and frames it above his side of the bed. His wife's no artist in the literal sense, but he's no longer in gaol, and Lily's a bloody masterpiece.


	5. Shrapnel

**Shrapnel**

_You okay?_

The two words are folded in a plane of parchment, which glides along the arm of James' fireside chair to knock neatly at his elbow. Something pulls at his bottom lip as he reads them, makes it slide between his teeth.

Two words, her handwriting, and they nearly send him over the edge.

A painful furrow appears between his brows as he looks over his shoulder. Lily's right where he knew she'd be, looking at him from her usual table near the window with empathy drawn on her face. The moment their eyes meet James shakes his head slightly, a silent answer to Lily's written question. She rises to her feet and softly makes her way across the common room to stand beside him.

He opens his mouth, tries to form words once, twice. On the third attempt a strangled croak is the only sound he makes, the trace of oncoming tears embarrassingly evident behind it.

Lily's curled on the carpet by his feet in a fluid movement, a hand pressed against his knee. She squeezes; the pressure's almost painful, but he's grateful.

"It's okay," she says, her voice fierce over the noise of the crowded common room. "It's going to be okay."

James grabs her hand, their fingers tangling unorthodoxly. Lily doesn't blink as she stares into his face. James knows she won't move until he finds the strength to talk.

"All Summer," he manages, just barely. Then there's a hand strangling his throat, blocking the words. Lily keeps her eyes trained on his, and she breathes in deeply. He follows, shakily.

"All Summer, I was by his bed. The elves even … even put cot on the floor, so I wouldn't have to leave. And then in that second-last week, my Hogwarts letter arrived …" His left hand, the one not holding hers, fingers the badge pinned to his collar. He finds some strength there, and in the light shining behind her eyes. There are tears shimmering there, too. James has a brutal awareness that if he lets his own spill, she'll follow instantly. He doesn't want to see Lily cry, and he blinks harshly.

"My letter arrived, and he was so happy. So _fucking _happy. He was _better_, from then until I went back to school. And Mum sent me a letter last weekend … Mungo's said he was making progress. And now-"He holds his hand in the air without purpose. There is no purpose.

"It's the third week. Your Dad's not supposed to _die_ in the third week of your Seventh Year."

"No," Lily says quietly. "Mine died in Fourth."

The words punch him in the gut, so quickly they don't immediately register. Then they do, and he wishes they hadn't.

"Shit, Lily, I'm sorry, I –"

"No," she says, and there's a power in her voice that he hasn't heard before. "Fourth or Seventh or First, it doesn't _matter_. He's gone, and he's not coming back, and every day you're going to wake up and remember that. James," a single tear falls, and his thumb brushes it away as it meets her cheek, "it's always going to hurt. But it's not always going to feel like shrapnel."

He doesn't know how to respond, to say thank you for the way she's blocked out the noise he can't get away from: the clamour of the Gryffindors and the words circling his mind. James knows that Lily knows he's no good with expression, so he grips her hand tighter and latches onto the last thing she said.

"Shrapnel?"

She gives a teary chuckle, leaning forward and pressing her lips to his clenched knuckles. "Bloody Pureblood."

She understands, and it's tangible in the way her fingers coil beneath his own. It's a lifeline, his lifeline, and he holds on for all he's worth.


	6. The Extended Package

**A/N **The prompt for this was "James and Lily talk about kids"

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**The Extended Package**

"We're never having any," James affirms, and when Lily lowers her lashes to look at him imploringly, he steels his eyes behind his spectacles. "_Ever_."

They've been married for a month, just a month, and he feels himself on the precipice of their first catastrophic row as newly-weds. It's a bit thrilling, he admits to himself, seeing the flashes cross Lily's eyes the way they do when she thinks she's going to get her way. But she's not. Because James Potter does not want children.

Unfortunately, Lily Potter (née Evans) does.

He blames her family for breeding too often. The youngest of his own by a good decade, he's always been grateful for being able to do whatever he's wanted without having to look after anyone else. Lily, however, has grown up surrounded by cousins and second-cousins in a little village where everyone was everyone else's babysitter and your family included everyone living in a hundred metre radius.

And now she wants it to expand.

"Not _now_," she emphasises primly, preparing dinner with an uncomfortable amount of chopping involved. "There's a war, James. But wars end, and families grow…" Lily looks up as her words trail away, and her lips pull up in a smile that, as always, he can't help but return. Until she points the knife at him, and he's suddenly scared. "What did you marry me for, anyway, if you don't want a family coming with me? You've bought the extended package, my love."

"I married you," he huffs, hopping from his perch atop the kitchen bench to wrap his arms around her from behind, "because you _scare_ me, Evans. And that's thrilling to a bloke, but the thought of little Lilies running around is fucking terrifying."

"Not necessarily Lilies," she murmurs, turning herself to press her lips to his collarbone. "They could be little Jameses."

James jerks away from her, appalled. His fingers tighten around her waist in alarm. "You want more _me_'s? They'll destroy the world."

"Or save it, if they have half of your talent" hums Lily. "Think about it, alright?" She reaches for the knife again and points it at his chest. "And you need to learn to stop calling me Evans."

He backs away; grinning, but eyeing her warily. "You're mad, _Potter_. Absolutely bonkers. You populate and it'll be the end of all of us."


	7. Newfound Adolescence

**Newfound Adolescence**

Lily gets suspicious when he asks to borrow her quill for the third time that week. She hands it over, eyeing him inquisitively, and when the utensil has changed hands she glances to his book bag, where she's _sure _she can see a nib poking out.

"Get a new one, yeah?"

James follows her eyes and kicks his bag once, jostling it out of sight. He mumbles something about a delivery from Flourish and Blotts coming in the post tomorrow.

The next day, he borrows parchment instead.

The pattern continues through the fading weeks of the school year, with Potter borrowing everything from textbooks to – on an unexpectedly cool Herbology lesson in late May – her Gryffindor scarf. Lily doesn't know what to think of the business, wondering whether _all _fifteen year old boys were this useless at keeping a reign on their belongings.

Mary insists that James tries to brush their fingers together each time Lily lends him something, but Lily refuses to listen.

There's a knock on the dormitory door several hours before the End of Year Feast, and Lily looks up from where she's folding socks into her trunk. Potter's standing at the door. With the extraordinary amount of height he's gained recently, his hair is only a few inches from brushing the frame. Lily raises an eyebrow at the sight of him, which is quickly joined by a second as –

"How'd you get up the stairs?"

James waves a hand dismissively. "Enhanced freezing charm, we figured it out in second year. Anyway-" Lily notices his feet are shifting awkwardly in the doorway, and Potter looks down at them for a second. When he brings his gaze up, his eyes meet hers, and he dons a crooked smile she's never seen before. He clears his throat.

"So, Evans, erm – you may have noticed that I've had to borrow quite a few of your things in the past few weeks."

"May have? I have to completely restock my belongings before I can even think about coming back for fifth year. It's going to be hard studying for OWLs when you've taken everything I own." Her tone is exasperated, but Lily's lips betray the humour behind the challenge. James' odd smile widens.

"Right, well, I reckon you'll need to give me your heart, too."

She's completely baffled. "_What_?"

"You see," he grins, and she knows he's coming to the punchline because he's got a look about him that says that, for some absurd reason, he's been _planning_ this, "I think you've stolen mine."

And _this_, Lily knows from that summer when Petunia had decided she was completely knowledgeable about boys and all things that came with them, is an attempt at flirting. She doesn't have time to be surprised, or even somewhat flattered, because Potter looks so proud of himself that she starts to laugh, and he doesn't even appear to mind when she shuts the door in his face.

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**A/N **This is for MaryLouise1996, to say yes, there definitely will be more!


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